Page 23 of Bad Moon Rising
I drive and I drive, and I don’t notice where I am until I pull into the old flour mill down by the river. The buildings are derelict now—just piles of brick and warped steel and cracked millstones. I used to love it here. The abandoned mill has a haunting beauty that you can appreciate when you’ve never experienced a real haunting. I used to take Lily and the boys for walks here. We’d skip stones in the river and make rafts out of driftwood and pretend to slay evil merpeople and eldritch creatures of the deep. Later, I drove girls to this same spot, pulling them onto the bench seat in the back of the stang and thinking of someone else when I undid their bras.
Lily Dean.
Perfect Lily Dean, barrelling toward me in that flame-orange dress like she’s going to claw my eyes out. Lily Dean with fire in her eyes and those perfect lips red as poison.
I groan as I reach for my belt buckle.
This is wrong.
This is sick.
She’s practically my sister.
She’s still in high school. I’m five years older than her. And my brothers are both in love with her.
But my dick and my heart… They won’t listen to reason. They want Lily Dean. They’ve wanted her for so long, and no one else will do.
I fist myself and pump hard, imagining her, always her. I imagine driving her to this very spot after prom and pulling that tight demon dress over her gorgeous hips and leaning her gently back on the leather seat and diving between her legs. I imagine tasting her for the first time, and how she’ll taste like daisies and dreams, and how those pretty red lips of hers will part a little as her body convulses around me as I give her her first orgasm.
“I wanted you to be my first kiss.” Her words echo in my mind, amplifying my lust.
Are my brothers so stubborn and stupid that in all this time, they’ve never made a move?
“Fuck,” I growl. I pump myself harder. I’m rough, so rough it hurts, but I like the pain. It’s what I deserve. I’m a bad brother. I’m supposed to protect the twins. And instead, I’ve brought a werewolf right into their backyard and kissed the girl they’re both in love with.
The girl we’re all in love with.
“Lily.” Just her name on my lips sends me over the edge. I come with a groan, imagining that dress bunched around her as she rides my cock. Imagining all the filthy things I’d do to her if she were mine. My body jerks against the seat as I pump cum into my hand.
I slump against the wheel, and guilt quickly chases the pleasure from my veins.
My phone buzzes. It’s Jackson.
I wipe my hand on an oil rag and pick up the phone with two fingers.
“What?”
“Is that any way to speak to your favorite brother?” Jackson shoots back at me. “Did you find any silver?”
“Yup. The guy at that antique shop in Sardinia had a whole set from some old lady’s house.” I calm my breathing as I zip myself up, becoming myself again. “I had to listen to a forty-minute lecture on the proper care of silverware, but I think there’s enough for a few decent stakes.”
“Good. I’ve made the shafts and I’ve got the forge fired up, so get home soon because melting down silver always takes a while.” Jackson inherited Mom’s talent for mechanics, so I knew he’d be able to whip us up a few decent stakes in time for the full moon. I’ve only got one stake in my kit, and it’s Dad’s old one so the silver has mostly flaked off, and the twins don't have any. I don’t intend to let my brothers get close enough to the wolf to stake it—that’s my job—but I’m not letting them help me unless they’re also armed. “Orion’s out on werewolf watch. He says it’s more of the same—she goes to school, she goes home, she reads, she goes to sleep. He says he’s been digging into their records, and her mother worked in Oakland Heights before she got the transfer here—that’s the town where you staked the wolf. AND their house is full of kooky occult stuff. She’s definitely our werewolf.”
“Good, good.” I barely hear a word he’s saying, I’m still thinking about Lily in that orange dress. “By the way, you’re taking Becka to the prom.”
“No,” Jackson growls. “I’m not.”
“You are. I make the plans and this is how I’ve decided it’s going down. It has to be you. Orion will throw up if he has to ask her.”
“Not happening. Lily’s going to the prom.” His voice shakes. “I’m not bringing this wolf anywhere near her.”
“Obviously.” I close my eyes and try to force myself to stop thinking of Lily in that red dress. “You’re going to pick Becka up for the dance and drive her down to the old mill. We’ll lock her in the old silo until she’s turned, and then we’ll stake her. Problem solved. You might even get back in time for the last dance.”
“Fuck you, Brooks.”
I hang up the phone and clonk my head on the steering wheel. The full moon is in a week’s time. All I have to do is get through an entire week without sticking my tongue down Lily’s throat, kill this wolf, and make sure my brothers go off to college and don’t get stupid ideas in their heads about becoming hunters.
One more week. And then I can get as far away from Haddenwood as possible before I ruin Lily Dean’s life, like I ruin everything.